Tomorrow We'll See Morning

Chapter Eight

    Uwajima, Ehime. March 25th, 1942.

Isamu stood in front of the copper mirror propped up against his wall, saluting his reflection and holding a stoic expression, before he deflated with an exhale and shook his head. He plucked his cap off the corner of the mirror and set it on his hair, adjusting it so that it covered his ears. His scalp still stung with the razor his mother had wielded, and the result had been an altogether dated hairstyle that Fusako claimed made him look like he came "straight from the twenties," but his father had given it an approving nod regardless.

A western-style ceiling fan hummed lazily above him, steadily clicking with each whoosh of the blade. He resisted the urge to fidget with his sleeves, and twisted around, practicing his march in front of the mirror. He felt like a real fool. Most of the other conscripts, he knew, would be coming in with no clue how to even stand at attention, but he couldn't risk slipping up. He could only imagine what they would say about him if he did; look at that, a general's son who can't even keep step!

      Isamu heaved a sigh and plopped down on the floor, staring out the window of his room overlooking the courtyard. He could make out the shaded road through the neatly trimmed maples, people trudging wearily by, carting wagons, or taking amiable strolls under the warm evening sun. He leaned back and examined the wooden trunk sitting in the doorway, not having had any time yet to unpack from his hurried departure from Paris. It was nice to be back, to have the familiar presence of Ehime's forested mountains resting around him once again, although he found himself missing the arching halls of the Sainte-Geneviève.

       I'll have to visit again after this war, Isamu thought, twisting his sleeve around absentmindedly. Not to stay—he would rather not deal with the endless bustle and stench of Paris for the rest of his life—but to just see it again. Of the few epitaphs of Paris he'd taken back, his copy of Les Fleurs du mal was the only one that laid, still unread, on his floor.

        Isamu noticed movement in the corner of the mirror, and he got up to turn around. Fusako was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, looking over the trunk with barely veiled frustration.

       "That's a fire hazard, you know," she grunted, pushing the trunk across the floor so that it sat against his wall. Isamu smiled with good-natured annoyance and looked up at the ceiling fan. "The military will be a good thing for you," she continued. "Maybe it'll teach you not to leave your things lying around in everyone's space."

        "I don't leave my things in your space," he huffed.

      Fusako laughed, a slight smirk forming on her face. "Not since I moved! You have no idea how much I love having all the quiet I could want. No more chicken noises, no more annoying little brothers flying their windup spiders in my hair..."

        Isamu very nearly pointed out that it had been a dragonfly, not a spider, that he'd propelled into her hair, until he remembered why his sister had even returned to Uwajima in the first place. Any levity slipped from his face, and he folded his hands behind his back. "How has school been?" he asked carefully. "I... heard about the accident at the factory."

          Fusako paused, blinking. "It was... well, it was disheartening to see them all—sad, if I'm being honest. But it made for good practice."

"I only saw the pictures in the paper, but..." he trailed off, not particularly up to describing the incident in any more detail, knowing that nothing he said could possibly add to what she had seen firsthand.

"They were only letting me roll up bandages before," Fusako shrugged, "but I got to practice stitching on a few of the workers." She walked back to the doorway and tapped absently on the wood, looking down at the floor as her brow scrunched up. "It's not so bad, after a while. You get used to it—or you don't. The nurses that can't handle the blood, they don't last long."